Multi-Modal Human-Machine Communication

Just in time to use it with your new Shadow Robot Hand, the
authors of a
2002 paper on human-machine coordinated grasping tasks have released
their paper online. The full title of the paper is Multi-Modal Human-Machine
Communication for Instructing Robot Grasping Tasks (PDF format).
The problem facing researchers was that of how a normal,
non-technical human could instruct a robot to grasp and manipulate
objects. The robot
needs to combine speech recognition with non-verbal clues such as gestural
commands. The robot also has to coordinate its understanding of the task
with its perception of the environment. This work was done by Patrick
McGuire and other researchers. You may remember Patrick McGuire
from the Cyborg
Astrobiologist project that we've reported on in the past.